


my only friend

by Oparu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12775938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: The defeated Evil Queen can only think of one place to ask the pirates to take her. The snow lies heavy on the trees on the way to Maleficent's castle, but perhaps she'll just die on the way.





	my only friend

**Author's Note:**

> post episode 7x07, Regina walks to the Forbidden Fortress

 Without magic, it’s a very long walk up the mountain from the port. Hook’s pirates look at the snow-covered trees and hand her a cape that smells of rum and pine tar. She loses enough games of dice that she can’t even pay them for the hard tack and dried meat they hand her, but Captain Smee has a kind heart. 

“Thank you.”

“I hope where you’re going will be a better place for you, your majesty.” 

She almost asks him to call her Regina. Ruling is behind her now, she’s no one of consequence. Nothing.

Maybe it’s too far. Perhaps the wolves will find her before she reaches the Forbidden Fortress. Mabe Mal will find her shining bones in the spring, or she’ll be lost forever and just rot. Unremembered. Unimportant. Defeated. 

She’s basically dead already. What does it matter if it becomes official?

There’s rum in her sack of food. (Smee is too kind for piracy, truly). She hates rum, but today she needs it. It bruns her throat and puts enough courage in her belly to keep walking through the snow. Luckily, there are paths. Mal might live alone, but that little unicorn loves to run through the trees. and the snow is broken.

Her feet lose feeling first, aching and screaming before they go numb, then her hands. When the darkness falls heavy, she can’t feel her face either, but the lights of the castle lie ahead.

Surely if she dies now Mal will smell her rotting?

She can barely knock when she reaches the door. Her arm is a club, half-frozen. 

Her heart skips, too foolish not to race. She tried to kill her, tried to kill the damn unicorn.

Maybe Mal will just end it. 

If she burns, at least she’ll be warm.

“Regina?” There’s no loathing in Maleficent’s face. “If you’d spoken to the ravens, I would have met you, dear. You didn’t need to walk.”

Regina tries to speak, but her teeth chatter and her throat burns and Mal’s hands shoot warmth through her like fire on her chin. 

“Let’s get you warm.” 

The little unicorn trots after them as Mal drags her to the bath. The hot springs fill the room with steam, but still, Mal kneels in front of her by the fire, rubbing her hands and feet with rags until they tingle, then ache. The pain of not loosing her fingers, or her toes, is nearly worse than if Mal had burnt them off. Thawing makes her eyes burn, and Mal doesn’t use magic, just holds her against her chest while she sobs. 

“I’m sorry.”

Gloating would be easier. Anything would be easier than this dreadful kindness. Even the damn unicorn snuffles her face, then nudgers her with its head. 

Damn thing is kind too, and maybe too stupid to know she tried to kill it. 

Who hasn’t she tried to end? 

When her fingers are angry red instead of white and she can move her toes, Mal guides her up into the bath, following her into the hot stones and water. They’be been here together, as friends, lovers, spiteful and loving in equal measure, but tonight its soft. Mal’s hands ease the tangles from her hair, soften the aching of her neck. 

“I’m glad you came.” 

“Where else would I go?”

“Away with the pirates who gave you that cloak?”

Regina laughs, not even bitter. “They took pity on me.”

“My dear--”

“Like you.”

Mal cups her face again, but finally, Regina can stroke her hand, can touch her back. “This is not pity.”

“I want to hate you for that.”

“Revenge burns, dear, but when it’s extinguished, when you’re left with the cold ashes, that’s the hard part. I nearly ended myself in mysery, in self-loathing.”

“Which I interrupted.”

“That you did.”

“But you still haven’t gloated. You told me I’d be here.”

Mal pulls her in, holding Regina’s naked body against her own. “You’re here with your heart intact. You couldn’t cast it.”

“I tried. Mal, I tried--” She should be out of tears, out of this pain, but she has a seemingly endless reserve.

“Even if you’d succeeded...I would not hate you.”

“I don’t think anyone can hate me more than myself.”

“Even Snow...”

Regina turns to her in front of the fire, fingers wrapping into a fireball she’ll never hold again. “Be careful.” She has no malice to summon, no hatred to spit.

Mal kisses her empty palm and Regina’s hiss turns to a whimper. “Stay.”

“Where would I go? Freeze to death in your forest? Find the wolves?”

Mal eases a comb through her hair and the fire makes her forget the ice she wanted to surrender to. 

“You’d be too stringy for them. Too tough. compared to the elk.”

“Elk can at least defend themselves.”

Mal smiles over her wine. “Are you wishing for horns now, dear?”

“Perhaps. Something would be nice.”

Mal reaches out with magic, tingling across her hands as she feels out the spell that binds her. “This is deep.”

“You don’t say.”

Warm and fed, she refuses a bed of her own and crawls into Mal's. The unicorn turns circles in straw in the corner of the room and Regina laughs. 

“Will she sulk that I’m here with you?” 

“Only a little.”

She could rage, beg Mal to search her spells and find a way to release her magic, set her free so she can return to her revenge, but she has no strength left to fight. This is deep, and old, something much was sacrificed to make. It will not be easily undone.

If it can be.

What was the price of this little spell? What were Snow and her precious prince willing to give up to end her?

She’ll never know. Mal plays with her hair, curling around her. The bed seems to rock like the boat, swaying beneath her on invisible waves. It’s been years since she was blind like this. Longer still since she was weak, devoid of the anger that sustained her for so long.

Perhaps that is why her magic will not rise. She has no anger to feed it, nothing left to give.

“It’s quiet without it. Everything seems too big.”

Mal rolls to her back, pulling Regina to her chest. “I used to sit in the darkness, waiting for it to swallow me whole, but even that I could not accomplish.”

“You lived.”

“Much to my dismay.”

“What did you do?”

“I got a pet.”

Rolling to her hands, she stares down, begging. Demanding. Lost. “Mal--”

She lifts Regina’s chin, shift so they stare at each other. “I found a better reason to live.”

“What if I don’t?”

As if they’ve been eavesdropping, the wolves howl into the night, echoing in the snowy trees. 

“I have faith in your ability to do the impossible.” Mal’s thumb strokes her cheek, then her lips touch Regina’s forehead. Regina kisses her back without restraint, without any of the same softness. Her hands run over Maleficent’s skin, harsh and demanding, but Mal rises to meet her,

This at least has been left to her. Without magic, it almost seems quaint, fucking with fingers and tongues, sweat coating their skin instead of magic. 

The numbness drowns beneath orgasm, fades when her heart thuds so loudly in her chest. 

“I could just do that until I can’t feel anymore.”

Mal tastes of her when they kiss. Regina must taste of tears, of failure, of misery and loss.

Perhaps she only tastes human.

Weak.

“Stay,” Mal whispers again.

And she does. 


End file.
